Homemade Scoby & Kombucha

I am fairly new to kombucha, only a few months but was immediately hooked.  It took me a while to purchase my first one because I just could not bring myself to spend over $3 on a beverage, and it really just did not look appealing.  Marlene's had them on sale -- $1 less than normal price -- and so then started the kombucha bottle collection in my cupboards!

Well if it didn't look appealing at first bottled sight, then certainly it doesn't when making it!  My husband could not believe I fell in love with kombucha.  He spent some years as a server in Florida -- the "South" part of Florida in the Panhandle, where sweet tea is ordered before the water comes out.  He wondered why I didn't just make it myself if I loved it so much.  I then looked up scobies and saw how unappealing the process looked and how much a kit would cost me.  He said they would make scobies all the time, not intentionally, but just by being so busy and never washing out the urns.  So I began my experiment.

From what I read online, I am finding article after article no longer recommended the homemade scoby method that I used.  However, even if you bought a scoby, in reusing it past your first batch you are still practically doing the homemade scoby method by using some of the old tea to feed the scoby, because each batch will make new scoby -- like you are initially atttempting to do with the homemade scoby method.  It's the same process in the second go-round if you bought your scoby.  It just sounds fishy to me to say it is not a recommended method, and seems more like a way to keep making money off of people on something that often unintentionally gets made in the South.  Yeah, you know what road I took!

I started with these ingredients:

1 bottle of store bought original black bottle kombucha
Homemade sweetened black tea

I wanted a good start so I used the black bottle kombucha.  If you are using GT's, this is the kind that says it contains alchohol because it has a slightly longer fermentation process than the clear bottle stuff.  I have seen in those non-recommended articles that the clear bottle is often used, though the darker bottles have much more of that cloudy blob on the bottom and I wanted a good starter for a scoby.

I started by steeping tea and molasses in a mason jar and a jam jar, halfway full, and then let cool completely.  I decided on molasses because I wanted the extra minerals in my kombucha.  Note -- I have read that in choosing sugar types for kombucha, since molasses has extra minerals, it is harder on the scoby; however, my scoby formed just fine in 5 days' time.  It didn't seem to have a bad effect on my batch!  I will stick to natural, raw sugars like raw honey and raw agave, because of contained minerals and ohter properties.  I just love that I can add healthiness (if I can even say a sugar source could be healthy with offending some) to something already healthy.

After the tea fully cooled, I split the store bought kombucha into the 2 jars.  I let it fully cool as to not kill the cultures in the kombucha I added.  Then I simply set the lids on top, not tightened, and let it sit in my pantry.

Right before I put the lids on. 

Day 5 gave me a healthy scoby, though I waited until day 8 to do the second fermentation on this batch and do a second initial batch. 

The initial fermentation can go from 7-30 days.  I thought mine would have to be on the high end since I was using molasses.  Yet, this wasn't the case for me, and the smell of tartness was to my precise liking on day eight.  It might have been because of the good starter black bottle kombucha that I used, rather than the clear bottle.  Our secret.

On day 8 I took the contents from this batch, removing the scoby and reserving some from of the bottom for another new batch, and bottled it into 2 kombucha bottles.  I decided on a gingerade flavor, squeezing fresh lemon into each bottle and 2 drops of ginger essential oil.  I gave it a quick try, and the ginger was very strong.  Next time I do this flavor, I will use just one essential oil drop per bottle.  Then I tightened the lids and put back into my pantry for another 2 days.  This is to enhance the flavor and to allow carbonation to build from fermentation to gain a fizzy kombucha.  With the scoby and reserve, I started another batch of kombucha, repeating my initial batch with a scoby this time.  

Second fermentation process.  The scoby did grow from day five to eight.

Second batch, reusing scoby.

It was a very easy process.  It's like ghee -- I can't believe I've been buying this stuff!  This second batch I will add chia seeds to make my favorite type of kombucha.  What are some of your flavors you have experienced making?  You know, I never was into sweet tea.  I actually even took a bit of pride in knowing it didn't get a hold of me.  Ha, but with kombucha... I guess in a way, sweet tea got a hold of me too.